Insights From The 3Q Digital Growth Summit

I’m a huge fan of digital marketing conferences, and just attended the incomparable 3Q Digital Growth Summit last week. There are two main benefits of conferences: The amazing networking (covered in my last post) and actionable insights. Today, I’m thrilled to share my extensive notes, insights, and takeaways from the conference. I took a good 9-pages of notes at the conference, and am including the top highlights below. When you’re done reading, don’t forget to head on over to 3Q Digital, and make sure to check out the 3Q Blog.

Opening with David Rodnitzky (CEO of 3Q Digital)

• Attendees:
  • Average Market Cap $59 Billion
  • 14 Public Companies
  • Total Market Cap $823 Billion
  • 18 Private Companies
  • Average Funding $135 Million
  • Total Funding 2.4 Billion
  • 9 No data available
• “World class people on our team, but we also have world class clients.”
• Themes:
  • Going beyond SEM, social, etc.
  • Understand your data
  • Use your 1st party data
  • Expand beyond SEM
  • Consider offline
  • Take a holistic approach
  • Get on the mobile bandwagon

Welcome From Top Sponsor, Ryan Gibson at Google

• Customer Match announcement, truly a game changer
• Use first party data to influence advertising on YouTube and Gmail

Evolution of Agencies and What Clients Should Expect

Scott Rayden (CMO at 3Q Digital), Mason Garrity (VP of Strategy at 3Q Digital), Ron Fusco (Director of Strategy and Analytics at 3Q Digital), and Marcy Strauss Axelrod (Consultant)

• How has marketing changed?
  • Behavior and expectations – devices, data, technology
  • Consumer expectations of what digital (the Internet) can do for you has changed
  • Average mobile user checks phone 1,500 times per week
  • Look at Facebook as a data company, not just a social platform
  • Speed and complexity has outpaced the advertising industry, and most marketers, and quite frankly many agencies
• What does all of this mean for agencies?
  • We have to change our mindset
  • We have to get away from this channel fist mindset
  • Customers come first, channels come second
  • Marketing strategy and innovation needs to be at the core of sustained growth
  • Growth is coming from areas outside of direct channels – technology, attribution
  • Can’t just go with mindset that “we growth this channel”
  • Marketers need to identify and solve the complexities that inhibit growth
• 3Q Digital is evolving as an agency
  • 3Q Digital Strategy and Innovation Group
  • 3Q Strategic Growth Assessment
  • We are so much more than a campaign management shop, we are so much more than media buyers
  • Future of performance agencies relies on these things
  • Adding a ton of resources in these areas: strategy, mobile, creative, analytics, testing teams being built out
  • 3Q has a proprietary framework, Digital Strategic Growth Assessment
• 3Q Built a diagnostic tool
  • Rolled out to beta clients, being rolled out to more
  • Fill out self-assessment
  • Series of interviews
  • Have our team assess you
  • Output: Set of recommendations and prioritized roadmap
  • 1. Customer journey – what process they go through
  • 2. User experience across devices – creative, how we’re measuring
  • Break them down: Strategy, execution, foundation
  • Process takes about a month start-to-finish
• Why do clients need this type of consultative work in our space?
  • Everyone so focused on execution, partner with that external focus is essential
  • Domain expertise, multiple clients, multiple industries and business models – we can share that knowledge
  • Foundational work – enables clients and companies to keep growing
• Strategy, Execution, Foundation framework – on surface seems like there might be an execution issue, however foundation is really often the issue (foundation is tough for marketers)
• Parent company: Harte Hanks
  • 3Q historically does not like holding companies
  • Harte Hanks was so different – they were so strategic what they want out of 3Q
  • Still operating independently, have autonomy
  • Really helped with strategy work
• How much will this strategic work cost?
  • Some cases where it might be free
  • Other cases where they might have to charge
  • They look at it as a responsibility we have for our clients

Fine-Tune Your LPO (Landing Page Optimization)

Joe Kerschbaum (Account Director at 3Q Digital), Sean McEntee (Account Lead at 3Q Digital), Adrienne Abrams (Sr. Director of Creative at 3Q Digital), and Hudson Arnold (Strategy Consultant at Optimizely)

• Curiosity Stream – Client at 3Q
  • Nexflix for documentaries
  • Lots of exclusives and originals
  • Launched by John Hendricks (Discovery Channel)
  • Plans start at $2.99 (great price for unlimited documentaries)
  • $5.99 for HD
  • Goal: Drive free trial sign-ups
• Curiosity Stream Landing Page Testing:
  • Test 1: Total redesign, didn’t want to do iterative from old page; Results: 31% CVR lift in first test; Accidental clicks on sign-in dropped; Background is less busy; Topic areas help explain the product
  • Test 2: Including familiar publications will increase trust; 2.7% CVR lift
  • Test 3: Copy and price; Didn’t work
  • Test 4: Video; 6.4% CVR lift; Users who entered sign-in process decreased, but those that entered converted better; Video helped educate
  • Test 5: Well-performing search copy; 21.8% CVR lift; Matching successful marketing copy across touch points
  • They use Optimizely for the testing
  • Pluto: temporary, event-based marketing
  • Unexpected outcomes: Price – when they first listed $2.99, didn’t work, then when they did video and explained what you get for $2.99, it did work
• LPO Tips From Optimizely:
  • Segmenting prospects vs. remarketing – going to show general content for prospects, more specific content for remarketing
  • MTV: tested thru entire live broadcast – adjusting content on the fly with Optimizely
  • Trend that Optimizely is seeing: Adjusting experience based on how far along you are in the lead qualification process
  • Start small, make a long plan; have a really good hypothesis; don’t be afraid of tests that fail
  • Present test in a form of the game – force audience to say which one won and why – great way to present tests

Increase Revenue with 1st-Party Data

David Rodnitzky (CEO of 3Q Digital), Brad O’Brien (Director of Social at 3Q Digital), Joe Stephens (Director of Native Advertising Strategy at Yahoo), and Russell Sprunger (Advanced Data Strategy Lead at Google)

• What is 1st party data? Any information your company exclusively owns or intrinsically owns; CRM and website behaviors
• Facebook Custom Audiences: Upload list; Website custom audiences; Lookalikes of custom audiences
• Social Media: Interest and intent are not always aligned – 1st party data so much better than relying on actions someone takes on Facebook
• Just launched Yahoo!’s version of custom audiences in Gemini; Just launched this week, in beta for some time now; Can target your customers on Yahoo! Homepage in the news feed; Next up will be lookalikes based on custom audiences
• Google Customer Match – RSLA, YouTube, Gmail – Can Target Your Customers; Customer match does not integrate with Google for work accounts; Also, AdWords now offers ability to integrate with DMPs
• Privacy Customer Match: Google requires advertisers who use this feature the ability for customer to link to the opt out page
• RFM – recency, frequency, monetary – send different messages to different quintiles
• Top Tips: Segment first party data; Just do it; Have a very clear objective in mind
• Flurry acquisition; Flurry SDK; Yahoo! is starting to use this more; Yahoo! also starting to use data from Tumblr too

Attribution and the Channel/Device Diversity Riddle

Ron Fusco (Director of Strategy and Analytics at 3Q Digital), Ramy Mora (VP of eCommerce Marketing at HP), David Perez (Acquisition Marketing Specialist at Convertro), and Ada Pally (Sr. Director of Client Services at 3Q Digital)

• Convertro:
  • Acquired by Verizon, part of Verizon technology stack
  • Work computer vs. home computer – multiple desktops
  • Three aspects of attribution: 1) measurement, 2) how much credit, 3) activating upon that
  • Email address is often the common denominator
  • Convertro offers private co-op
• HP:
  • HP: Store influence score
  • There are a segment of consumers that will only buy from OEM
  • There are a large percentage of consumers that come to you as a destination site, but then buy from partners (such as Best Buy)
  • Someone coming to site to learn, this has value, need to place a value on it
  • Warby Parker – Highest sales per square foot of any retailer today, very successful story; Started online, now went brick and mortar
  • If you don’t have your own physical stores, you should have partnerships with physical stores
  • Consumers want to shop the way they want to shop, you need to offer all the options
  • HP has physical stores in Brazil and India; In the US, HP partners with BestBuy

Fireside Segment – Stay Ahead of the Mobile Curve

Craig Weinberg (VP of Mobile Strategy at 3Q Digital), Wilson Kriegel (CBDO at PicsArt)

• PicsArt: 250 MM users, largest photo app in the world
• Suite of creative tools
• Merge software and community into a single app
• Company is 3 years old
• Half billion creative assets per month
• Over 10 billion views of assets
• Profitable
• PicsArt 70% Android, 70% international, 20 age group, 60% female
• 25% in Asia not counting China, 25% Europe, 20% Europe, 15% Latin America
• Mostly advertising/sponsorship (70% of revenues) and in-app purchasing
• Auto push content into Tumblr and track thru full lifecycle in Tumblr
• Every week, hackathons; Bi-monthly releases
• 2nd highest rated app in the world
• Facebook has been very successful for acquisition
• Organically seeing huge velocity in a region, double down with paid media

Client Panel

Neal Ungerleider (Fast Company), Erica Yoon (Sr. Director of Marketing at Sungevity), Slaton Carter (Director of Digital Marketing at The Real Real), Matt O’Day (Digital Marketing Lead at Square)

• Android has been very successful for Square
• Same lifetime value for Android vs. iOS
• However, less competitive on Android

Client Spotlight – SurveyMonkey

David Rodnitzky (CEO of 3Q Digital) and Ada Chen Rekhi (VP of Marketing at SurveyMonkey)

• There are 1.6B smartphone users
• Growing 24% YoY
• Growth is not coming from here in the US
• 52% of smartphone share is with Android
• 84% of smartphone adoption is Android
• SurveyMonkey: 6 years ago, 14 employees; Now 600 employees
• 85% English (5 years ago)
• 55% English (today)
• 17 languages, 28 currencies
• How did we do this:
  • 1) Speak in their language; Leverage platform called Smart Link that translates text, sits between user and site (on the fly)
  • 2) Transact in their currency; Germany – bank transfers (not credit cards); Japan – invoices
  • 3) Be visible and compelling; Search Ads; Diversifying Media; Landing page optimization
• Start Planning International Now:
  • Structural pre-planning for international – content, currency, time zones
  • Keep testing – this is a scalable way to test and learn
  • Partner to go international – leverage partners to scale to international

Slides From 3Q Digital Growth Summit

Image of PPC Ian 3Q Digital Lanyward © PPC Ian and 3Q Digital